Officer-Cadet: Dirigent Mercenary Corps, Book 1

Best-selling author Rick Shelley brings listeners an explosive new series of future warfare. Lon Nolan, a young soldier expelled from Earth's prestigious North American Military Academy on trumped-up charges, is seeking to prove his worthiness in the Dirigent Mercenary Corps, where the bloody craft of battle has been refined into an art.

Soldiering in SciFi

So reading the Publisher’s summary you could be excused for thinking this would be some sort of Gary Stu coming-of-age military story that we all know..Show More » from before. Well, it is not. And really it is very light on the whole science part of the fiction too. I mean there are space ships, but just as a means of travel and there are planets, but just so that the story can have a location to take place. That is it.And the “trumped-up charges” part, yeah that’s 5 sentences in this book, maximum. So what is this book then? Well, it is the story of a young man who goes off to war where he experiences combat for the very first time. We don’t really know a lot about him, but we know he is afraid. That is all that this book does, it describes the journey of a young man from his home base into combat and through it. And there is quite a lot of combat, which was exciting enough, and I really did enjoy the fact that our hero is not in fact extraordinary. The downside to this is that not being extraordinary and without much of a backstory to him, our hero is rather bland. I was hoping for “Armor” and I think I got the somewhat honest descriptions of a soldier set in a science fiction universe. Fair enough.

The narration was decent, but one or two of the voices he did was, in my opinion, absolutely dreadful.

Lieutenant: Dirigent Mercenary Corps, Book 2

The year is 2804 AD. Humanity has colonized the universe. But the authority of the Confederation of Human Worlds is spread thin. Where the Army of planet Earth cannot reach, mercenaries must keep the peace - and the Dirigent Mercenary Corps are the best of the best. Kicked out of the prestigious North American Military Academy, Lon Nolan had only a few choices left to him. He chose the hardest one: serving with the Dirigent Mercenary Corps, an elite fighting squad where respect is earned but on the battlefield.

Captain: Dirigent Mercenary Corps, Book 3

The year is AD 2804. Humanity has colonized the universe. But the authority of the Confederation of Human Worlds is spread thin. Where the Army of planet Earth cannot reach, mercenaries must keep the peace - and the Dirigent Mercenary Corps are the best of the best. Serving with the Dirigent Mercenary Corps wasn’t Lieutenant Lon Nolan’s first choice - it was his only choice. After he was expelled from the North American Military Academy, there was nowhere else to go. He’s finally made a place for himself with the DMC when a girl has to go and throw a wrench in his plans....

Major: Dirigent Mercenary Corps, Book 4

The year is 2804 AD. Humanity has colonized the universe. But the authority of the Confederation of Human Worlds is spread thin. Where the Army of planet Earth cannot reach, mercenaries must keep the peace - and the Dirigent Mercenary Corps are the best of the best. Lon Nolan is skyrocketing through the ranks of the DMC, proving time and again that he’s got what it takes to be one of the most elite fighters in the galaxy. But as his family grows, he becomes less certain that the mercenary life is for him.

Lieutenant-Colonel: Dirigent Mercenary Corps, Book 5

The year is AD 2804. Humanity has colonized the universe. But the authority of the Confederation of Human Worlds is spread thin. Where the Army of planet Earth cannot reach, mercenaries must keep the peace - and the Dirigent Mercenary Corps are the best of the best. Lon Nolan has distinguished himself at the DMC, and he has the battle scars to prove it. Now, the governor of the isolated mining planet of Bancroft again needs Lon’s help. The Colonial Mining Cartel is terrorizing the planet, and Lon is the only person who can stop it.

Colonel: Dirigent Mercenary Corps, Book 6

A legendary warrior in the Dirigent Mercenary Corps, Colonel Lon Nolan is ready to distance himself from a world of war and death, until he discovers that the chancellor of Elysium is coming to Dirigent, hoping to enlist the aid of the DMC against the marauding mercenaries of New Sparta.